Argh Ink Book Club: Gaiman and Pratchett’s Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Tell me how much you loved this book. Or how much you hated it, although you’re wrong, of course. Or parts you liked best or parts you disliked or parts that confused you or whatever. Or characters: there’s Adam and Anathema and Aziraphale and, of course, Crowley and so many more. So much to talk about.

The only requirement is that you be playing “We Are the Champions” in the background while you participate.

80 thoughts on “Argh Ink Book Club: Gaiman and Pratchett’s Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch”

I love this book. Terry Pratchett is the BEST and I like Neil Gaiman as well. I tend to prefer the more Pratchett-y bits than the Gaiman-y bits, e.g. the maggots section (written by Gaiman if I recall correctly) was a bit off-putting.

I’m English, so of course I found Aziraphale hilarious, I know so many English men with his personality. Of course he’s running one of those ancient, crowded bookstores (as close to heaven as you can get).

The BBC did a really nice version of the book in 2015, and you used to be able to get it “on demand” for free. I remember listening to it when I was deep into my podcast phase. The ending was spectacular.

Aside from the very common-sensical sensibility, I loved the Four Horsemen so much. I loved how they were updated to modern times. Pestilence was transmuted into Pollution (although, I do wonder how much we have really eradicated contagious disease; I feel this was a tiny bit over-confident on the authors’ part, particularly because the Ebola epidemic was — IIRC — in the same general time frame as the BBC podcast). I adored War. So kick-ass. And of course Famine would be about the non-nutritional nature of modern food, and starving ourselves on purpose instead of because the crops failed this year. And Death . . . well, Pratchett does good Death.

When I think about it, it’s entirely odd that we’d feel sympathy and even likability for these evils. Why would an author do that? (Or a pair of authors, in this case?) But really, the best villains do seem to have a certain quality, a certain roundness of personality to them.

Hmm, I rather found the horsemen to be disturbing. The scene with famine and the woman who was “dieting” but actually starving herself to death and the one with pollution sitting by the river that just junked up with crap, all unpleasant. I do believe the authors would be happy that I found these characters and scenes disturbing.

I love the general outlook which is so Pratchett, the idea that no matter how much Larger Forces want something to happen, Things Work Out. They drop the Antichrist on earth and he goes home with the wrong (but right) parents. They send him a Hellhound that must respond to his command and he wants a puppy, so . . . It’s just such a lovely cheerful book, and it’s not about beautiful people doing perfect things. Everybody in here (except for War) is significantly not beautiful, but they’re all doing their best. I particularly like the idea that the Aziraphale and Crowley recognize that they’re sides of the same coin, and that it doesn’t really matter which side wins, what’s important is that neither side wins. I love the BALANCE that this book’s entire premise is based on. The world may totter, but it’s a Weeble World and it won’t fall down.

Pepper and War are both red-headed females who fight like hell (and I think they’re both, if not actually instances of “the Girl”, at least sitting somewhere in reaction to that trope as the only female on their respective teams), Wensleydale rides a black bike and perhaps believes more in what he reads than what he knows (which is perhaps another way of looking at Famine’s strategy), Brian rides a white bike covered in dirt and is always grubby (though he seems much more down to Earth than Pollution, who seems slightly dopey), Adam and Death are neither of them just one of the lads…

But when the Them take on the Four, what is the reason that they need pretend swords, scales, and crowns, and why does being touched with these makeshift things make War, Famine, and Pollution go away? (Actually, is it because they’re symbols of make-believe, because it does say something about them going back into the minds of humanity?) Also, the sword is obvious (and I like how it ties in to Aziraphale giving a flaming sword to poor Adam and Eve…to keep them warm), the scales make sense in context, but is the crown a reference I’m missing? And is it a reference to pollution or is it to pestilence?

I seem to remember that the power of imagination is supplemented and increased by the use of props, and thinking back on my own childhood, it was true. It’s all well and good to pretend there’s a chair made out of air, but it’s much better to have a small cardboard box to be a chair. Could it be that imagination, like willpower, is a finite resource? If we spend our time turning air into sitting surfaces, we don’t have enough imagination to support the finer points of imaginary play?

All I remember is that props were really important as a kid. There was such a thing as destroying the fantasy by having props that were too perfect or did all the work. Or was more work than simpler props (ie: my sister’s tea set would never be taken outdoors. Leaves and stuff would be used instead). But most fictional kids “need” to have the sticks for swords and the acorn tops for cups. I think in A Secret Garden, the kids had a real fire and potatoes for a snack, but they didn’t go as far as killing a pig and roasting it . . . that would have broken the system, I think.

In my infinite wisdom and complete lack of grasp on my own life, I forgot that I’m having eye surgery at the crack of dawn tomorrow, which means I have to do stuff today, so I’ll get back to you tomorrow night or Wednesday, depending on when I can see again.

Talk amongst yourselves, which you will do anyway. Definitely do not wait for me, which you wouldn’t do anyway. So nice to have a community that would run the blog even if I wasn’t here. Yay, Argh!

Oh, there’ll still be shots. I’m going blind two different ways, cataracts from years of asthma medicine and AMD which started in my thirties. The cataracts are completely and permanently fixable, so that’ll be fine. The AMD will get me eventually, the plan is to hold it off as long as possible.
The good news, the shots don’t hurt at all.

I read this while visiting (my husband would say hiding from) family in east Texas, which is bible belt Trump country. Definitely added an unsettling prophetic dimension to the book.

Crowley is my fave. I fell for him right off the bat when he derides old fashioned demons like Ligur (“fourteenth-century minds, the lot of them”) for wasting years picking away at one soul while Crowley can spread misery to thousands because he’s recognized that people, with just a little nudge, will do it to themselves, and that in a crowded world, the “pass-along effects” were incalculable.” Made me think of fake news on facebook.

I’m relaxed. It’s outpatient and this is the doc who gives me shots in the eye which no longer worry me. And it’s standard surgery, been done for decades, and I can drive the next day, in theory. Piece of cake.

I didn’t read Good Omens until after I’d seen the first 5 seasons of Supernatural, which is a completely inverted way to have gone about it. I avoided Pratchett for years because I was afraid of getting sucked down his rabbit hole. But, oh my, this was a very good time.

I love the longtime friendship between Aziriphale and Crowley best, but only by a little over all the rest that is reallyreallyreally good. The characterization of 2 spies from opposing countries who have more in common with each other than their fellow citizens, was spot on.

I finally read this book less than a year ago and loved it. I read it again during dialysis a couple months later, along with Agnes and the Hitman, once I felt like reading, since I needed books to re-read. I’ve reread parts of Good Omens again. The parts fit together so well.

This has been my go to book when depressed for more than 20 years. I welcome the chance to go back to it at this time when the world depresses me. Must confess, no music playing, but I can still hear it in my head.

I love the way Pratchett does stuff like that! (Or maybe it’s Gaiman; he’s pretty good at that sort of inversion of trope, too.) Of course a demon wouldn’t go around cursing; blessing would be more meaningful, and yet so charming for the reader to encounter.

I love more or less everything about this book. I love it’s deep quotability, it’s grasp of human nature (“There is no possible way that a car could be completely on fire and still running, therefore I must not be looking at such a thing, therefore I am not… but I really must fire off a letter to the editor about all this.”) and the deep and fundamental humanism of its take on the supernatural.

But one of the things I love most about it, one of the things that takes out of fun and silly and into sublime is the simple fact that its theology is, in a lot of ways, more coherent and far better thought-out than much of what I learned in church as a child. (I don’t mean that as a slam against religion in general or Christianity in particular; that church that I grew up had a sign on the wall outside the head priest’s office that said, “Priests do more than lay people,” so I’m pretty sure that most of the church leadership would have appreciated Good Omens.) Good Omens is satire, sure – but it’s good, thoughtful satire composed by people who have seriously thought about what it would mean to have an all-knowing, all-powerful God in the context of the world we all live in.

I listened to Good Omens on a road trip with 2 co-workers to a conference and back. I found the book to be engaging. At various times it was thought provoking and disturbing – the 4 horsemen and how we are destroying our world and ourselves; funny – “I thought you had a flaming sword? I gave it to them as they looked cold.”; boring – the one fanatical dude, the abbey, the long description of the baby mixup, …

I did like the scene where the 2nd edition showed up and the couple Agnes’ descendent decided to pitch it. I also found how Agnes’ predictions came true, appreciated being in on them, but occasionally was annoyed that the other characters didn’t have that knowledge too. I know, it wouldn’t be the same.

Also, some of it was confusing, especially at the end, but perhaps that was due to the audio book vs. reading the print?

I like audio books as long as the reader is really good and the book isn’t a “condensed” version.

I remember one time having borrowed a Tony Hillerman book on tape (non-condensed version), don’t remember exactly what book it was, but the reader gave Joe Leaphorn an accent which was more Texas than Navajo and it made me insane.

Since I already knew the story, I just ejected the damned thing and returned it to the library in disgust. It would be like someone reading Jane Austen with a Brooklyn accent… Barf-o.

Same here. I get distracted and can’t pay attention. I have wondered, though, if Pterry’s last few books might be BETTER on audio since he told them rather than wrote them. You can tell the difference in the storytelling style.

Oh, that’s a great point.
I’ve been thinking about blindness all day–eye surgery will do that to you–and I realized that I could still do non-fiction with dragon dictate, but my fiction career would be done.
OTOH, I’d be GREAT at non-fiction.
Maybe I’ll try reading the later ones out loud. When I can see them again.

I liked the voice artist on WTT so much that bought the Audible version of Faking It, even though I own a hard copy. But I have other audibooks from other authors who I like that I haven’t been able to listen to at all.

I listen to audiobooks for housework, or long runs, where I want to forget what I’m doing. It’s a kind of magic that turns unpleasant things into my favourite things as reading is precious time, usually.

“Who knew?” Actually, I did — I actually have been there (Hell, Michigan, I mean). Actually, in the Upper Peninsula, there is also a town called Paradise (in the Upper Peninsula). So, you can literally go from Paradise to Hell and back without ever leaving the state.

Well, just Hell. I did an edit on the second sentence and meant to write “Hell is in the Lower Peninsula” inside the parentheses — but my real-time editor was so whacked out that I have two “actuallys” and both town in the UP. Sigh.

But I think what I love most about my edition is the forwards by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, about how they wrote bits of it and both disavow writing other parts that just appeared. And that it’s the most beat-up, held together by tape, dropped in the bathtub book ever seen in the history of book signings. I find that just so charming for some reason.

I bought this book when it first came out. I was a senior in college, and drove my roommate crazy because I stayed up late into the night reading it and laughing my head off.
I’ve since re-read it a few more times, and it’s one of my favorite books. I particularly love the scene in which Crowley is listening to the car radio: “I should be so lucky, lucky lucky,lucky, I should be so ‘CROWLEY!'”
Because he’s always called through the radio.

I love this book! But I am almost embarrassed that I own a pristine (27 year old)
hardback, and therefore have no bragging rights about how tattered and bath
splashed it is. Would Neil Gaiman even deign to sign a clean copy? (if I ever
see him)

I’m back. Eyes still blurry but now half of my world is MUCH brighter. I’ve been living at the bottom of a dimly lit pit, evidently. Really looking forward to tomorrow when the eye drops wear off and my world is no longer so damn blurry. Back at you all then.

BTW, my freshly ordered copy of Good Omens arrived yesterday, and, while I had little time to really dive in, I can tell already I am going to love it.

It’s the way they use the language — a literature professor of mine many years ago said that the “story” of an enduring piece of literature is often trivial, it’s the way in which it is told that so captivates us. How true it is!

I finished the book this afternoon (third time in ten years), and while I do love it, the dénouement is a bit abrupt for my liking.

Reading it this time, I was struck by the children, their interactions and the dialogue. The whole setup was hilarious and very familiar, and then it came to me, William and the Outlaws. Apparently, the book began life as a parody of the William stories, and that was another thing to love.

I’ve never heard of William. Is this British?
It’s like the Camden Green (?) bit in Life on Mars which must have been hysterically funny for anybody living in England, but I had to go look up why Sam was hallucinating clay animation. (If it had been Wallace and Gromit, I’d have gotten it.) Okay it would still have been funny watching a clay Gene kick a nonce (which I also had to look up), but so much funnier if I’d known it was like Sesame Street here.

Best William story that I remember was the group getting back at a snotty child who used to get them all into trouble by making him say, “Damn and blast” in a play. Then they used his tattle lines on him. “We told him not to.” “But he wouldn’t listen.” They had help from the boy’s cousin, if I remember correctly, because the child was THAT annoying.

I’m loving this book all over again. The Horsemen have just met the bikers so the world is well on it’s way to Hell.

Glad you are seeing better, Jenny. It’s amazing how much of a change that can bring to our world. I remember when I first got glasses how surprised I was because I could see all the needles on spruce boughs individually. Also, I see colour better with my glasses than without. I have all the big eye diseases in my family so I’m braced of needing eye surgery some day (even though the thought makes me ill).

So I hate prologues.
But that bit in the Garden of Eden, when Crawly (heh) and Aziraphale can’t decide if Evil had done good and Good evil? I love that. Especially since if God is omnipotent, he knew what they were going to do anyway. Because God does not play dice with the universe . . .

So does that mean that He knew the dumb nuns were going to screw up the hand-off? And Adam was going to love the world so much that he’d give up destroying it?

I’d argue no because if God sees everything and knows everything, He’s basically watching reruns constantly. The world’s only interesting if he’s watching people and animals make choices and seeing what comes spiraling out of that.

But on the other hand, Agnes could see the future, so the future must have been written.

Maybe I just WANT to believe in free will. But I still think Adam averted the apocalypse he was supposed inherit. I think the inherent optimism in this book reinforces that theory.

The disconnect between the Four Horsemen and Adam’s four always seems to me to be the shift between concept character and real human beings.

It’s not that the Four Horsemen aren’t interesting to read about, but they’re definitely a distant, clever, and somewhat cynical take on the modern world, much more that they’re characters, which makes me think they’re Gaiman’s. Pratchett did his own Four Horsement (five with Ronnie) and they were all people, not ideas.

The kids, on the other hand, are people, broadly drawn like all of Pratchett’s people, but clearly human beings with human feelings, and so my reaction to them is much warmer and much more involved. I care about the kids, I want to see them interact, I feel much more a part of them.

I watch the Four Horsemen from the outside and think, “What a clever use of symbolism,” but I don’t like reading about them, I don’t enjoy watching them be bad guys the way I enjoyed Reacher Gilt, a bastard if there ever was one, or Teatime who was a straight-up sadist. They only become enjoyable when the dolts on motorcycles join them and start to pick names.

But the kids, the kids are Pratchett people, so beautifully drawn and warm and real.

I haven’t read much Gaiman, but I get the feeling he’s just a colder writer than Pratchett, more interested in ideas than in character. And then I remember Coraline, which I only know from the movie, and that was amazing. So maybe not.

I hesitate to say I am not a huge Gaiman fan – his work sounds like it could be wonderful, but when I read his books I find the telling to be simplistic and cold. I hadn’t thought of cold as an adjective for his work before, but yes, that fits. The movie of Coraline was amazing and really beautifully done, adding layers to the book Gaiman wrote.

Since I also have this problem with Jane Yolen, an author and human being revered by pretty much everyone, I am thinking it is more my problem than any particular aspect of the authors in question.

I think any author appeals to a particular kind of reader, which is why some people love Moby Dick and some (me) find it boring as all hell.

I really haven’t read enough Gaiman to judge, very little in fact, but I think the reason is that when I try, I find it all surface. Not that there isn’t meaning beneath it, but that there isn’t heart beneath it. The ideas sparkle but they’re just ideas.

I think story works for me, when it all fits together through human (or at least something emotional) connection. Crowley and Aziraphale work for me, not because they’re abstract ideas drawn with wit and intelligence but because they connect. Adam is marvelous not because he rises intellectually and asks the Big Question, but because he loves Tadfield and the Three so much that he rejects what he’s supposed to be in order to save them. As much as I love Anathema, her love story does nothing for me because it’s not really about connection, it’s about being clever. But Adam’s love for the county where he lives is so great that it transcends Fate, if Fate exists. For a book as concerned with the Big Idea, it never really answers it. If God knew this was going to happen all along, then there is no free will and Adam is not a miracle. If God didn’t know it, if he really was playing dice with universe, then he’s not omnipotent and there goes religion.

But if you just look at Adam and his love for the land and his friends, then you get this solid sense of rightness, that the universe does bend toward justice–not goodness, not peace, not prosperity, but eventual justice–and things will work out, maybe not as we hoped, but as they should. That there’s a pattern there that’s not foretold but that’s humming “Everything’s going to be all right” in the background, even if it takes a thousand years and a miracle to get there.

I think that’s why Adam’s story, and even Crowley and Aziraphale’s stories, work so much better than the Four Horsemen. Their stories are based on love and connection, while the Horsemen are based on Clever Ideas. And I think that actually works in the story. That is, of course those who love and care desperately will defeat those who are just fulfilling destinies. The Four look forward to the Apocalypse but there’s no sense that they’ll really fight for it. The ones who love have so much more to lose and therefore have a much bigger reason to fight for it.

I think the cold clarity of so much of literary fiction is one of the reasons I’ve never been a fan even though I can see the beauty of the words and appreciate the ideas beneath them. I remember working on my MFA and seeing that good story walked the line between cold intellectualism and hot melodrama, that I never wanted to fall over onto either side, and then one day I realized that I was going to have to pick a side, that nobody could walk that line and achieve anything. And once I looked at that, I knew it was melodrama all the way for me, that I’d rather be wildly romantic that precisely brilliant.

I think Adam’s story is wildly romantic. I’ve read this book at least a dozen times, and I still get chills when Adam decides to save the world. He comes so close to destroying everything, and it’s love (and his friends) that saves him. All the forces of Heaven and Hell are raised against him and he says, “No,” because what Heaven and Hell want is wrong. He’s Tom Sawyer saying, “All right then, I’ll go to hell,” willing to put everything on the line for what he feels is right. He doesn’t think things through and decide the best course of action, he feels the right course of action.

I think the Four Horsemen are intellectually brilliant work, but Adam is genius melodrama. And I’m Team Adam all the way.

I didn’t really get into any Gaiman books I’d tried to read until American Gods and Anansi boys, both of which I like, but didn’t love (they are not on my keepers shelf). I hadn’t considered the surface/lack of deeper connection that was missing. I might look at AG again with that in mind.

My favorite thing about Gaiman, though, is that he married Amanda Palmer. My daughter was (probably still is) a huge fan of Palmer. When my daughter was in college and went to an AP concert in Philly, she emailed me the next day to tell me about the show. (My daughter always walks backstage unless there is security to stop her – comes from growing up as a performer herself, I think). The last line of her email, kind of a throwaway, was, “I met the guy Amanda Palmer’s dating. He’s some sort of writer. I think he might be a big deal. His name is Neil Gaiman. Have you ever heard of him?” Well yes, yes I have. To which she responded, “Cool. He’s really nice and laid-back.” Cool, indeed.

Geiman wrote the Dr. Who episode called “The Doctor’s Wife” (series 6, episode 4), which has always been one of my favorites. It seems to be the perfect blend of abstraction and emotion: the TARDIS has a speaking part.

And I prefer “The Empty Child” two-parter and “The Girl in the Fireplace,” both Moffat. I know “The Doctor’s Wife” is always up there on favorite lists, but I just couldn’t connect.
I may just not be his reader/watcher. Or I may need to go watch that again.

It’s been interesting re-reading this while I’m writing Nita. So much of Pratchett-ian world view in there, especially the idea that demons don’t need to be evil because there’s nothing they can do to humans that humans aren’t doing to themselves, along with the idea that “the Devil made me do it” is just scapegoating to get out from under one’s own actions.

I have a lovely friend I adore who is a fundamentalist, and she’s truly worried about me researching demons even though I’ve assured her I’m just looking up names and not going deep into the dark stuff. She’s worried about me opening myself up to evil. I take her seriously even though I don’t believe what she believes; I know her fear is real and she cares for me, and even though I don’t believe in demons, I believe in her. (We’re also opposites politically and agreed early on just to never talk politics. That’ working out pretty well for us, too.) I mention her because she’s a truly good person who would accept responsibility for her actions if she ever did something wrong, but she still believes in demons and the Devil as a source of evil beyond plain old human evil. And I wonder why that is, why she sees all the wrong in the world as externally sourced instead of being part of the dual nature of human beings, if that makes it easier to encompass, maybe, that God is good and Devil is bad and therefore it’s essential to praise God and be on the lookout for the Devil and his demons. (I don’t want this to come across as condescending because I don’t feel that way: her beliefs are as valid as mine, and there’s no reason she should believe what I believe.) I so much prefer the belief systems in Good Omens, that demons exist but they’re not that different from the angels and that in the end, life bends toward justice.

Gaiman wrote a 2nd Doctor Who episode. It’s the one where they take the kids to the moon (or somewhere like it) and there’s an abandoned amusement park and Cybermen there. I don’t remember much other than not being very impressed with it.

And I adored the Doctor’s Wife. I think it was a work of love. But I remember so much from it, vividly.

I first read this book as a teen and totally fell in love with it. I have gone back to it time and time again. The relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale is the heart of the story for me, and I get warm fuzzies just thinking about it now. I think this book may actually have been my introduction to Gaiman. I love Neal Gaiman’s work, but I would say that his long form fiction is not where he shines. His graphic novel series “Sandman” is *brilliant* and I totally recommend it. The other place he shines is in short story form, but I would still say check out Sandman over his short stories.

I keep meaning to.
I own Coraline in book form (and in DVD of course). I did read a Snow White short story he did and really disliked it, but everybody I know likes his stuff and I’ve heard amazing things about the Sandman series, so that may be my next stop.

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About the Author

Jennifer Crusie is the New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher’s Weekly bestselling author of twenty novels, one book of literary criticism, miscellaneous articles, essays, novellas, and short stories, and the editor of three essay anthologies. She lives in a cottage in New Jersey surrounded by deer, bears, foxes, and dachshunds, where she often stares at the ceiling and counts her blessings.